A future of dark
by Emzing
Summary: An accident in Mobius activates a Chaos Control. However this time they travel through time and not space. This results in that one parallel timeline continues for ten years without our heroic Sonic and his companions, but with Eggman left to take over!
1. Chapter 1

A Future Of Dark

Darkness. Darkness and streetlights. A cold world with little compassion for what it has yet to befriend. A red creature, known as an echidna in the world he comes from and known as a freak where he is now, takes long, stalking steps as he makes his way through the broken darkness. Purple eyes reflect the void created from the almost empty streets. It might seem as if every object in that street is there merely to enhance the image and impression of emptiness; the exception that confirms the rule. Himself? Also a mere foreground object meaning to illustrate the aspect of emptiness called solitude. Abandoned? Or abandoning? What does it matter, when they both reach the same conclusion?  
One of his wide shoes clash with a pebble, causing four taps to echo through the block; one when the shoe hits the pebble, one as the pebble bounces on the ground, another one when it hits a brick wall in an alley to his left ahead and the final one as it falls back to its frozen position, where it will be waiting until someone else does not mind his step and kicks it again. A low growl escapes the lips of the echidna, a growl of irritation and defiance. Irritation over his situation, his location and his yesterday; defiance towards the absurd suggestion of accepting it. Future. Chaos Control has two possible effects; travelling through space, time, or both. They travelled to another planet once before, but they handled. The people there did eventually accept them. But this time they have gone through a travel of time, to the future. The future without himself and his... allies. A simple deal of self-fulfilling, Tails called it. Them teleporting to somewhere else than their time and place led to the future not involving them. This is only one of the many parallel universes and possibilities, according said fox, meaning they can get back. And if they don't... well, then this will happen to the world. Robotnia... the new name for Mobius. Where all animals with intelligence matching that of humanity are to be extincted. Where he is now known as "Freak- 003" in the RSS-files. And where Sonic is of course going to be the hero again. He kicks another pebble. Six taps this time, six taps that play percussions to the music of silence in the city.

On the other side of the city in the campus of the university area, it is time to rest for most of the people there; students and tutors. However some of the inhabitants remain awake, all of them gathered in one room; the head master Allenby, three tutors and four very odd, anthropomorphic guests, creatures thought to only exist in imagination, all of them bearing resemblance towards one specific animal existing naturally in the world, but with the changes being so significant that one normal person would scream at the sight. For they walk on their two legs, speak our tongue and react humanely. The animals, or creatures, are one blue and one pink hedgehog, a two tailed fox and finally one green echidna, the latter standing a bit further from the three former and possessing a large crescent boomerang inspired tool. However all the humane like animals are standing in a row before the humans. The head master appears to be in his forties, hair grey at the temples and a matte shade of brown in the rest of it. He has a hard looking face, the kind of face you'd see on one who could freeze to ice at will. His clothing is what you would expect of a head master: grey and formal. His accompanying tutors, two women and one man, stand in a triangle around him and his chair. Their whole appearance, their arrangement, would make you doubt in whether they were really tutors or militaries. The two women are standing on each side of him, and the man behind. The women have green respectively blue eyes, and they are both blonde, although the green eyed woman has a bit darker blonde shade. They reflect the cold face of the head master, although in a smaller scale, as does the man standing behind him, who has brown eyes and black, back slicked hair.  
"Sonic. Amy. Tails. Cheos. Is that correct?" the head master asks. His voice is deep, and firm. The blue hedgehog, named Sonic, nods for the group.  
"Yeah, that's us" he says with a smile. The green echidna nods, though silent. The head master leans back in his chair.  
"I welcome you all. We need any help we can get against Robotnik" he says, his frown tightening. The green eyed woman, with the darker blonde, takes one step forward.  
"Allenby, where are we supposed to hide them? They will sooner or later want to be outside, and one glance from the RSS will have them all killed on the spot" she says. Her voice is bright, almost like that of a younger girl, but not less serious for that. Allenby nods.  
"I am fully aware of that we should not make this a prison rather than a sanctuary, but the park in the middle of campus should not usually be inspected by the RSS. Unless, of course, they have seen you and are looking for you. In that case we would have to hide you" he answers, firm as always.  
"Whether they go out to their death or not should not be our problem. We offer them a sanctuary, their problem if it does not suit them" the blue eyed, platinum blonde woman responds. Her voice is chilly, and almost grating.  
_"Talk about ice queen..."_ Sonic thinks, discretely rolling his eyes.  
"We can take care of ourselves" Amy snaps back, getting looks from all the persons in the room; more or less discrete looks.  
"I have no doubts you can. After all you did save the Landerson kid" Allenby says calmly. He looks at the platinum blonde woman.  
"As for you, ms. Carson, there is no need for your frostiness with guests at our university" he says with a softer voice. Carson looks at the animals, and then at her chief.  
"Yes, mister Allenby" she says coldly. Allenby nods, and turns to the black haired man and the other woman.  
"Hartman, Wilson, please show them to some empty rooms. Close to each other" he says. The man, Hartman, and the woman, Wilson, nod and mumble a unanimous "yes sir" before smiling to the group, leading them out with the head master and Carson following after killing the lights. Cheos, the green echidna and seemingly stranger to the rest of the group, walks a bit behind the other animals and looks around. He has his boomerang tied to his back with a black belt. He sees Sonic looking backwards, smiling.  
"Nice moves back there. Where'd you get that boomerang from?" he asks. Cheos gives a smile.  
"I've had it all my life" he answers simply. Sonic tilts his head a bit to the side as they walk.  
"How do you control it like you did back there? It's not a normal boomerang, I noticed" he comments. Cheos nods, smiling wider.  
"It's made out of wood. Not dead wood, it's alive, and that makes me able to control it" he says. Tails, the two tailed fox, turns around as well a bit.  
"Alive wood? How can that be?" he asks. Cheos shrugs.  
"I don't know, I didn't make it, I just got it so long ago I can't remember how or why" he answers shortly. Sonic nods and turns around again, as well as Tails. Cheos doesn't continue the conversation, though. He decides to be quiet for now. He misses home, but what does it matter now?


	2. Chapter 2

The RSS head quarters. It wasn't easy to infiltrate, but not hard enough to keep it safe from the skilled echidna named Knuckles. At least not at 4.37 AM; the calculated time for lowest efficiency in the robotic guard system, considering how many robots are at their weakest and how many are off duty for refilling. Not that it matters now that he is inside, though.

"It could be good to know what their impression of us are for the moment", he thinks as he enters the room where they store all current investigations. He remembers his own file name, Freak-003, from the news. Which means the rest of them should be named Freak added up with a numerical suffix. He looks around, seeing the drawer with the letter F on it. He opens it up and looks at the different tabs. He finds the Freak-files in between Fraud-files and FreeEx-files. He gets a bit curious about the FreeEx-files and gives one folder a quick glance. FreeEx stands for Freedom Extremists, he notices. Could be good to know. He takes what was really interesting him: the Freak-files. He wishes he could just bring it with him and read in a place where he does not risk being busted, not to mention giving them more information about himself. However that would mean they would probably notice its absence. He wants to leave as little imprints as possible in their investigation. So he opens the large folder, which contains smaller folders. He gasps, very quietly and to himself only, as he sees the number of folders. It reaches up to Freak-023! Let's see… that green guy that happened to be present during the Chaos Control, Sonic, Amy, Tails, Shadow, himself… that makes four of them. So there are 19 remaining "Freaks" to discover. However he notices, after quick overviewing of the folders, that most of the remaining folders are dated to before the Chaos Control. So they are probably not about anthropomorphic animals like them. He starts to sort them out; the ones dated to before the Chaos Control are laid aside, and after that he actually opens the folders and reads the files. Freak-001 is Sonic, he notices.

"Always first, always best" he mutters. 005 is Tails, 008 is Amy and finally 004 must be that green guy. He reads the other folders and finds three other cases he is sure must be anthro's like himself, because there are pictures. Vague, but clear enough. Two females, one male. One of the two females has a very worrying file; right before and after her sighting, people in the woods started to disappear. They had sent a group of agents for her, and one survived with pictures to tell the tale. The pictures make him shiver; heads ripped from their respective necks, deep fangs sunk deep into flesh….

"Let's hope I don't run into her…" he mutters and moves that one aside as well. He moves over to the other female file. A blue fox, with large, glittering and frightened eyes. She looks remarkably beautiful, despite her whimpering expression and the untidy hair. His eyes linger for a moment on her. He decides to try and help her. She doesn't look like someone who could offer good help in a fight, but rather someone who would need help. He reads a small notice in the corner of one paper.

"In custody…" His eyes narrow. He doesn't care that much over himself being chased and hated, but the image of a girl who doesn't seem able to protect himself… As a guardian it's just an instinct he has. Emerald or person, protecting is what he does. He moves over to the male file. Black hedgehog, although he seems able to protect himself. "Uncaged" is the label on him. Perhaps someone who could prove a help if needed? Not that he needs help, but he wishes to get home as soon as possible. The longer they stay here, the longer the time in their realm passes. And for every second, this reality gets more and more probable.

The alarm sounds; crushing his ears with the shrill noise.

"Damn it!" he growls. He wants to know more about these! He snatches the files that are either possible cases of Chaos Control victims, quickly shoves the uninteresting files into their folders and those folders into the large Freak-folder before shoving it down in the archive again. He jumps up on the large sets of drawers, reaching a high-up window. This room is in the basement, so this high up loft window would get him out on firm ground. He opens it quickly and escapes into the night with the important files. He decides; tomorrow he will try to save the blue fox girl.

_If you must know, that blue fox girl is not my self-insert. She's a roleplaying character made by a friend. I do have a self insert, but it's not her =) _


	3. Chapter 3

Sonic lets his head hit the table with a groaning sigh. Tails looks at him, eating on a sandwich. They have their meals in the staff dining room, to be hidden from the rest of the university. Sonic is holding a newspaper in his hands as he lets the sigh grow louder, causing the green echidna to give him strange glances as well.

"What's wrong, Sonic?" Amy asks. Sonic lifts his head again with an unimpressed face as he shows them a page in the news. Tails skims through the text briefly.

"That does look like Knuckles, alright" he says and nods. Sonic rolls his eyes.

"He's about as discrete as a rock concert" he comments. Cheos giggles a bit, finding it a fun joke. Sonic smiles just a little bit.

"Ah well. That's his problem. I'll love seeing his face when we have to butt in and snap him out of jail" he says and starts to rock his chair a bit while munching on an apple.

"They can keep him" Amy says grumpily. Sonic chuckles.

"Sure, Amy, you don't always agree. But I think you'd miss him a great deal if we left him to his fate" he says with a smile. Amy shakes her head stubbornly, pouting her mouth in that very characteristic way.

"Not me, no" she says. Sonic laughs again, shaking his head to himself as if knowing who's right. Suddenly the door to the staff room is slammed open, a teacher standing in the door way. He is tall with blonde back slicked hair, and his face is all pale and sweaty. He looks at headmaster Allenby, panic in his eyes.

"They... they've found one of our students... in the forest... dead!" he stammers. Allenby rises up, startled.

"You can not be serious!" he says with a shocked, yet reined, voice. The man nods.

"I am dead serious, Allenby. Young master Nicholas Johnson... his body... sir, I couldn't stand the sight of it... butchered, slaughtered..." His voice fades as his face grows paler. Allenby walks over to the man.

"Thank you for informing me, Lycson. Now go and pull yourself together" he says. Sonic looks around; the whole staff room seems as if frozen, silence all around them.

"Can I have a word with you, Sonic?" Allenby suddenly asks. Sonic nods, rises from his seat and walks to the head master. They go into his office, which is directly in connection with the staff room. Allenby sits down on his regular spot while Sonic leans to the wall, listening.

"This isn't the first time people have been found out in the forest with their bodies brutally torn apart" he starts off. Sonic nods.

"Go on" he says,

"However, those... incidents... never occurred before you and your friends showed up here. Now I do know that all of you are innocent. But judging by your story... perhaps there was someone in your world that could be the cause of this?" he wonders. Sonic scowls in thought, for a long time, before shrugging.

"I don't really know. Maybe Tails would know, if you would show him the corpse?" he suggests.

Said and done: the very same afternoon, some of the tutors escort a well-hidden Tails to the forensics laboratory. Sonic frowns. He has a feeling they are to enter a new enemy.


	4. Chapter 4

Sonic is on his locked room, watching the television with Cheos, when someone is heard unlocking the door. Tails emerges into the room, having been hidden all the way there until no one was around to see. A few teachers are behind him, asking if they need anything. Sonic shakes his head, smiling to Tails for a while before sobering up.

"So did you figure anything out?" he asks. Tails nods.

"It's got to be one from our time. The wounds were not brought by a human, not by a weapon, but not anything living on instincts only" he answers. He could give a longer and more detailed explanation, but he hates having Sonic yawn to his explanations.

"Anyone we might know?" the blue hedgehog asks. Tails shakes his head.

"I don't think so" he answers, sitting down on the other side of the couch Sonic is half lying in.

"I overheard that the authorities have had troubles with Knuckles again, though" Tails adds. Sonic looks at Tails, and sighs.

"Discrete little fellow, isn't he?" he says. Cheos laughs a little from his place in the armchair beside the couch. Tails nods.

"He and some blue fox girl they kept imprisoned. And some other 'freaks'."

Sonic looks a bit startled.

"Some other?" he asks. Tails nods.

"Apparantly we are quite many travellers through time" he says.

"Maybe they can help us, and themselves, to get us back home?" Cheos suggests. Sonic nods.

"Probably. We just need to hope that they are hiding and staying out of trouble. And if they don't, well, I guess I'll have to break the discretion" he says with a smile.

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"It was nothing..." Knuckles mutters with cheeks matching his fur colour, not only because of the lipstick stuck on his left cheek. The blue fox lets go of him with a giggle.

"Sorry, I'm just so thankful" she says with a happy voice, her tail swishing about over the forest path and her hands still clutching his.

"My name is Orbis. And yours?" she asks with a best described bewitching smile. Knuckles avoids eyecontact with her. He knows the deal: just give them the slightest hope for romance and they will take it as a promise. He doesn't want to disappoint anyone. So it's better not to promise them anything at all in the first place.

"Knuckles" he answers. Orbis, the blue fox, giggles and strokes a finger over his pointed knuckles.

"I can see why..." she jokes with a bright laughter.

"Don't think you're the first one to say that" Knuckles warns her. She smiles innocently.

"Of course not" she says. Knuckles tries to think with her voice in the background. He can see on her that she's not really one meant for wilderness. Makeup, her necklace with a heart as jewel, that top that just won't cover her belly and a miniskirt. Not to be judgmental, of course not, but she won't stand one day with his current routines. He hates it, he hates it a lot, but he will have to ask someone for a favour...


End file.
